TAMPA—To have been around the Maple Leafs last season, and to be around them now, is to have witnessed a stunning evolution in team culture.

It’s just not the same dressing room, although many of the faces are the same.

Did the culture come first and winning follow? Or did winning produce a better culture and a better sense of team? Or is one even possible without the other?

What we do know is that the fragility of the team that fuelled a second-half collapse last season has vanished, replaced by a more durable team fabric.

Part of this change has been the uncompromising regime of Randy Carlyle, on full display at 8:15 a.m. Tuesday morning when the Leafs took to the ice for their first practice since clinching a playoff berth on Saturday.

“Turn your hearing aids up!” barked Carlyle as he sought to recapture the attention of his players after two days in the sun. “Why do we keep doing those things? We’ve got to have some answers to this stuff!”

Later it was, “C’mon Nazzy, you’ve got to be first!” as he sensed Nazem Kadri was insufficiently hustling during a skating drill.

“They’re human. Some days there’s not as much attention to detail as you’d like, and it’s up to us as coaches to find a way to send a message,” said Carlyle. “We want to play to the template we created from day one. We don’t want to change. There’s a whole other, bigger step coming.”

Under Carlyle, there’s a way things are to be done, with no variations on a theme allowed.

“You do it this way. You don’t go do what you did in junior hockey or college hockey. We have a manual that we work with and a system that we work with and you have to abide by it,” said assistant coach Dave Farrish, who has been Carlyle’s right-hand man since their days in Anaheim.

Within the room, youngsters know their place, not as in they should stay quiet and polish the shoes of older players, but in that they know they’ve got to earn a spot, first with the Marlies, then with the Leafs. It was that way for Jake Gardiner, Kadri, Ben Scrivens and Matt Frattin, of whom only Kadri has yet earned full-time work.

You see kids like Joe Colborne just lapping it all up, seeing the same rules and accountability apply to everyone, understanding he has to pay his dues. Other young players keenly notice the defensive demands being made of Gardiner, rather than errors being accepted because he’s so flashy at the other end as seemed to be the case under the Ron Wilson regime.

At the top of the food chain, meanwhile, there’s been a strengthening of the leadership group, partly from addition, partly through a growth in roles and partly through maturity.

It’s not just about one lonely leader anymore, not just about whether Dion Phaneuf is or isn’t the perfect captain.

“We’ve asked other people to share in the responsibility of leadership,” said Carlyle. “We asked Dion to pull back in his message at times. We’ve built a support group around him so we’re not just looking at one individual to have to bear all the responsibilities for the success and failures of the hockey club.”

Phaneuf seems more relaxed and more comfortable wearing the “C,” and has had his best season as a Leaf.

“Everyone leads in their own way,” he said. “It’s not just the guys wearing the letters. It’s collectively as a group. It definitely takes a load off the guys who are wearing the letters when there’s that shared leadership.”

There’s no shortage of admirers for Joffrey Lupul, who has grown into a larger role with this club. If Phaneuf wasn’t the captain, Lupul probably would be, both for his personality and his well-known record of fighting back against career adversity.

Jay McClement, meanwhile, leads by work ethic and determination. How many checkers could come in to any team as a free agent with a modest salary below the NHL average ($1.5 million) and immediately become a team leader and an assistant captain?

McClement has pulled that off, an under-reported part of the growth of this team.

As well, there are fewer players that need to be led. When a mature player like 26-year-old Mark Fraser is among those playing his full NHL season, and players like Marlies captain Ryan Hamilton and Mike Kostka, a standout on last year’s Calder Cup champion Norfolk Admirals, are among your subs, there’s just a lot less hand-holding required.

This isn’t a powerhouse, and the first visit to the Stanley Cup playoffs since 2004 might be a brief one.

But there’s been team growth here, a noticeable chemistry and a lot of parts that fit.

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